Desigualdades en el logro académico y reproducción cultural en Argentina

Résumé 0

"This article analyzes the effects of social origins and the socioeconomiccontext of the school and province on student achievementin mathematics and language at the end of elementary education inArgentina. The study examined data corresponding to 32,289 stu-dents in 1,319 seventh-grade classrooms for mathematics, and to30,477 students in 1,226 classrooms for language; both sets of dataare from urban schools in Argentina. To develop the analysis,linear models with three levels were utilized: the student, schooland province. Math and language scores were based on standardizedtests administered to students at the end of the school year.Use was made of four different indicators, based on student questionnaires,of economic and cultural capital at the individual andcontextual level. The results are discussed in light of Bourdieuístheory of cultural reproduction. It was found that the measurementsof economic and cultural capital are significant predictors ofscores on math and language tests, primarily in their contextualform (social segmentation of the educational system). But on theother hand, an important proportion of the variation in schoolsíaverage scores is not explained by these factors. The implication isthat school characteristics (institutional or pedagogical characteristics)are also significant factors in the level and distribution of scholasticlearning in Argentina."